A HUGE quantity of ammunition has gone missing from two military bases in Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has revealed.

He said on Tuesday that an army inspection this month had uncovered the theft of hundreds of thousands of bullets, thousands of grenades and 37 anti-tank missiles from a military base in the centre of the country and another near the Caribbean coast.

The left-wing president said the ammunition might have ended up in the hands of rebel groups or been sold illegally to criminal groups overseas, including Haitian gangs.

“The only way to explain these missing items is that there are networks made up of people within the armed forces who are involved in the illegal arms trade,” he said.

Mr Petro vowed that inspections of military bases would continue in order to “separate the armed forces from any type of criminal organisation.”

The investigation comes as Colombian government forces resume fighting in the south-west against rebel group the Farc-EMC, which split from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) after it signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.

Mr Petro has opened peace talks with some of the remaining rebel groups.